Nick Ferris Discusses His Irish Newspaper Launch, Building Circulation
Nick Ferris, who was award marketer of the year recently continues his discussion on how he founded Ireland’s first business to business newspaper back in the 1990s. Once Nick Ferris had the team selling advertising, and the media put together he had to tackle the issue of the circulation to ensure the promises of the media kit were kept.
That included distribution at some airports, business hotels and other key business intersections across Ireland. This is where having a local colleague do the footwork really helped. Many of these deals were done by handshakes. People would be open to having some newspapers in their lobby for example recalls Nick Ferris, if their clients found them useful. Over several weeks the deals were put in place and the distribution network was set up for about 25,000 copies to be distributed across the country.
At the same time, Nick Ferris was working closely with the telemarketing agency refining the script, offers and any feedback they were given. Plus as advertisers started to come in, Nick Ferris would then follow up making sure the ads were to the right specification for the publication and also would be delivered on time.
This whole process to set up the newspaper took about two months and once he knew they would get enough advertising to cover the printing costs, thus making the first issue at the very least pay for itself, Nick Ferris could then turn his attention to the editorial. If the advertising had not worked they could have refunded the advertisers and the project would have only cost a small amount. It just goes to show you, recalls Nick Ferris, that you can sometimes move mountains and launch new products with little to no upfront expense.